San Jose, Calif. -- Nanosolar, a San Jose-based maker of thin-film solar cells and panels, said on Friday it has raised $70 million in a new round of funding, which the company will use to expand production, bolster research and development and more quickly commercialize its solar technology. Participants were led by OnPoint Technologies, Mohr Davidow Ventures and Ohana Holdings. "With this latest round of funding, Nanosolar will be able to continue ramping up its production capabilities and achieve a faster time-to-market with its products," said Guido Polko, the company's executive chairman. "The money also will allow us to deepen our R&D efforts aimed at achieving even greater efficiency, and significantly expand our employee base in both Europe and the United States." Nanosolar's technology is based on printing CIGS (Copper, Indium, Gallium, Selenium) inks on low-cost aluminum foil.
http://www.nanosolar.com
http://www.nanosolar.com/company/blog#203

San Francisco -- Quest Hospitality Ventures, a San Francisco-based venture capital firm, said on Friday it has partnered with Maryland-based Thayer Lodging Group to launch Thayer Ventures, a new fund that will invest in emerging technology companies focused on the hospitality industry. The fund -- a successor to Quest Hospitality Ventures -- plans to begin making investments in 2013. Thayer Ventures will be based in San Francisco and managed by general partners Mark Farrell, Chris Hemmeter and Lucien Ruby -- the original founders and managing directors of Quest Hospitality Ventures -- as well as general partner Jeff Jackson, former CFO of Sabre Holdings. Quest Hospitality Ventures' inaugural fund made investments in eight hospitality tech companies, including Hipmunk, newBrandAnalytics, Nor1 and Adara Media.
http://www.thayerventures.com
http://www.thayerlodging.com 
http://www.qhventures.com
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120601005079/en/Thayer-Ventures-Raise-Funds-Finance-Hospitality-Technology

Mountain View, Calif. -- KikScore, the Washington, DC-based developer of a service that assigns certifications and scores to e-commerce businesses based on their level of trustworthiness, said on Friday it has sold its service, platform, technology and certain other assets to Mountain View-based Google. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The company said its service -- which has been used by more than 1,700 small business customers -- will be discontinued as of June 28. It is recommending the Google Trusted Store product as an alternative. "Back in 2008 this all began at a Fuddruckers in Northern Virginia," wrote co-founder and CEO Raj Malik in the company's blog. "The road from there to today has been filled with great highs, some deep lows, overcoming immense challenges all while dealing with the occasional kicks to the gut that most startups typically experience… There is still great work to be done for small businesses and that is why we are so excited that Google will be able to build off of the technology, platform and IP that we spent our blood, sweat and tears building, developing and launching."
http://www.kikscore.com/
http://blog.kikscore.com/2012/06/01/google-acquires-kikscore-service-will-change-on-june-28th/ 

Los Gatos, Calif. -- OneSpin Solutions, a German EDA company with U.S. offices in Los Gatos, said on Thursday it has raised an unspecified amount of new funding from majority shareholder Azini Capital. The company said it will use the funds to expand its portfolio of tools for the formal verification and equivalence checking of chip and system designs. OneSpin also has named Raik Brinkmann, who joined the company at its inception in 2005, as its new president and CEO. He succeeds Peter Feist. "The new funding will enable us to address this significant market opportunity by developing and providing easy-to-use formal solutions targeted at specific, well-defined verification challenges, giving new adopters an easier and faster entry into the use of formal methods," said Brinkmann. U.K.-based Azini acquired a majority stake in OneSpin in Jan. 2011.
http://www.onespin-solutions.com/
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120531006049/en/Azini-Capital-Funds-OneSpin-Solutions-Accelerate-Growth

Palo Alto, Calif. -- Diffbot, a Palo Alto-based creator of visual learning robot technology that lets developers analyze, extract and enhance web content, said on Thursday it has landed $2 million in new funding from several individuals. Investors included Sky Dayton, the founder of EarthLink; Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems; Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab; Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of YouSendIt, and other top executives and founders from Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo. Matrix Partners also participated. "This investment… lets us accelerate towards that goal with new hires and expanded resources," said Michael Tung, Diffbot's founder and CEO. The company said its visual-based content extraction technology views and understands web content the same way human beings do. The technology is designed to identify and extract the important objects on any web page using artificial intelligence, computer vision, machine learning and natural language processing.
http://www.diffbot.com 
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120531005927/en/Technology-Veterans-Invest-2-Million-Diffbot-Visual

Redwood City, Calif. -- Opnet Technologies, a Maryland-based developer of application and network performance management tools, said it has acquired Redwood City-based Clarus Systems, a maker of software designed to improve the service performance and availability of unified communications systems. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Opnet said the acquisition expands its product portfolio for application and network performance management. "There is an innate expectation in enterprises that voice services should be flawless and always available," said Marc Cohen, Opnet's chairman and CEO. "However, when these services are implemented over a converged network, the only way to meet this requirement is with a powerful management solution that is able to comprehensively test, monitor and troubleshoot the entire infrastructure and its configuration… We are excited about expanding our capabilities in this area."
http://www.opnet.com
http://www.clarussystems.com
http://www.opnet.com/press_releases/public_pages/opnet-technologies-inc-acquires-clarus-systems-for-managing-unified-communications

Fremont, Calif. -- Redwood Systems, a Redwood City-based provider of building-performance lighting technology, said on Wednesday it has landed $11.75 million in its third round of funding. Participants included Battery Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, Index Ventures and Mitsui & Co. "This investment will allow us to continue our rapid growth by accelerating the development of new technologies that complement the Redwood platform while expanding our leadership in the building-performance lighting industry globally," said CEO Dave Leonard. Redwood is the developer of a smart building platform that powers and controls lights, as well as a high-density sensor grid that it says provides energy savings averaging 75%.
http://www.redwoodsystems.com/
http://www.redwoodsystems.com/news-events/press-releases/2012-may-30/redwood-systems-secures-1175-million-series-c-funding

Redwood City, Calif. -- Shutterfly, the Redwood City-based online photo sharing service, said on Wednesday it has acquired Israel-based Photoccino, a developer of technologies for photo ranking, analysis and organization. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Photoccino's technologies will be integrated into products across the Shutterfly, Tiny Prints, Wedding Paper Divas and Treat brands, helping users more efficiently organize and select the best photos from their archives to create photo books, calendars, cards and photo gifts. The technology applies proprietary algorithms to analyze and evaluate the quality and content of photos, ranks them and automatically creates photo products using the customer's best images. "Photoccino's… technologies solve a common consumer pain point -- analyzing and organizing the increasing number of stored digital photos," said Jeffrey Housenbold, the president and CEO of Shutterfly.
http://www.shutterfly.com
http://ir.shutterfly.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=678111

San Mateo, Calif. -- Danaher, the large Washington, DC-based science and technology company, said it will acquire San Mateo-based VSS Monitoring, a developer of technology designed to optimize the way data is extracted from high speed communication networks. Financial terms of the deal, expected to close by mid-June, were not disclosed. VSS is expected to join the communications businesses in Danaher's Test and Measurement segment. "VSS will broaden our ability to provide leading technologies to our service provider and enterprise customers to optimize the way data is extracted from high-speed 40G/100G communications networks," said Jim Lico, executive vice president of Danaher. Danaher generated $16.1 billion in revenue last year, and is No. 158 in the newly released Fortune 500.
http://www.danaher.com/
http://www.vssmonitoring.com
http://www.vssmonitoring.com/corporate/news.asp?ID=225

San Mateo, Calif. -- Trip Hawkins, the well-known Silicon Valley gaming entrepreneur, said he is stepping down as the CEO of San Mateo-based social games developer Digital Chocolate, a company he founded eight years ago. Hawkins, also the founder of Electronic Arts (EA), said he plans to remain in a consulting and advisory role with the company. "For its next stage of growth, Digital Chocolate is narrowing its focus and it made sense to get more streamlined," Hawkins wrote in his blog. "I will remain involved in digital media and games and be available for opportunities including mentoring, consulting, teaching, speaking and writing."
http://www.triphawkins.com
http://blog.digitalchocolate.com/archives/931

Menlo Park, Calif. -- Badgeville, the Menlo Park-based developer of a gamification platform designed to help businesses measure and influence user behavior, said on Wednesday it has raised $25 million in its third round of funding, led by InterWest Partners. Several previous backers, including Norwest Venture Partners, also participated in the round, which increases the company's founding to $40 million since its launch in Sept, 2010. Badgeville currently boasts more than 165 clients, such as Oracle, EMC, Deloitte, Dell, Samsung, NBC and The Walt Disney Company. "InterWest Partners brings a wealth of experience in high-growth software-as-a-service, and we look forward to their strategic assistance in our continued global expansion," said CEO Kris Duggan. The company has more than 70 employees in four offices.
http://www.badgeville.com
http://www.badgeville.com/news/announcements/badgeville-behavior-platform-raises-25m-series-c-round

Palo Alto, Calif. -- 10gen, a developer of database software with U.S. offices in Palo Alto and New York, said on Tuesday it has raised $42 million in a new round of funding, led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA). Previous backers Sequoia Capital, Flybridge Capital Partners and Union Square Ventures also participated in the round, which the company will use to invest in product development and bolster support. 10gen is the maker of NoSQL database platform MongoDB. "We want to change the database market to make MongoDB the best way for companies to build new applications," said Dwight Merriman, the CEO of 10gen.
http://www.10gen.com
http://www.nea.com
http://www.10gen.com/press/10gen-raises-42-million-financing-round-led-new-enterprise-associates

Mountain View, Calif. -- Ace Metrix, the Mountain View-based developer of a television and video analytics platform, said on Tuesday it has raised $8 million in a new round of funding from WPP, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Leapfrog Ventures and Palomar Ventures. The company said it will use a portion of the proceeds to fuel product development and expansion into new markets. "We are on track to continue our 100% growth rate through 2012 and this new financing will allow us to further extend our portfolio of products and services to key adjacent markets while scaling our business infrastructure and sales and client services teams," said CEO Peter Daboll. Advertisers use Ace Metrix's web-based services to assess and act on the creative effectiveness of their video ads.
http://www.acemetrix.com
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120529005398/en/Ace-Metrix-Closes-Funding

San Francisco -- San Francisco ranks No. 4 in U.S. News' newly released list of the 10 Most Expensive U.S. Cities for Workers. Citing information from the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER), the publication reported that the average cost of living for a couple with a baby or young child in San Francisco was $9,556 a month in 2010, with the figure about $1,000 higher for couples with older children. Manhattan topped the list, followed by Brooklyn and Honolulu. The complete report is available at the link below.
http://money.usnews.com/money/careers/articles/2012/05/24/the-10-most-expensive-us-cities-for-workers

Palo Alto, Calif. -- Junar, the Palo Alto-based developer of a cloud-based open data platform, said on Tuesday it has raised $1.2 million in initial funding. Participants included Aurus, Austral Capital and several angel investors in Latin America and the U.S. investing. The company also officially unveiled its core platform, which was tested by more than 200 organizations during an early-access program. Junar said the platform is designed to help users streamline open data projects, from extracting datasets to building graphical views and managing data publishing.
http://www.junar.com
http://www.junar.com/press

Santa Clara, Calif. -- Intel Capital, the investment arm of Santa Clara-based chipmaker Intel, has led a new $30 million round of funding for SecureKey Technologies, the Toronto-based company announced on Friday. The company said the capital will fund the commercial rollout of its online and mobile authentication tools. New investors Visa, MasterCard, Discover Financial Services, Rogers Venture Partners and TELUS also participated. Intel is currently working with SecureKey, which plans to deploy its tools in Intel Identity Protection Technology (IPT) beginning on Ultrabook devices later this year   By embedding its technology in a variety of devices, SecureKey can enable "tap/click to pay" and "tap/click to authenticate" capabilities, and provide secure proxies to stored credentials in device or cloud-based digital wallets.
http://www.intel.com/about/companyinfo/capital/index.htm
http://www.securekey.com
http://www.securekey.com/announcements/2012-05-25%20SK%20Funding%20Release.php

Washington, DC -- President Obama on Thursday took to Twitter for an impromptu question-and-answer session following a speech on clean energy in Iowa. Sitting in front of a laptop, Obama bagan the hour-long session with the tweet, "this is barack - let's get this started! -bo." He then proceeded to answer seven questions ranging from America's dependency on oil to refinancing options for underwater home owners. The complete text is available at the top link below.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/05/24/president-obama-talks-congresstodolist-twitter
https://twitter.com/whitehouse/status/205846823527657472/photo/1 (Photo)

New York -- Hoping to persuade shareholders to vote out several of AOL's current board members, investor Starboard Value on Friday issued a letter to stockholders urging them to consider its three nominees. The firm, which owns 5.3% of AOL, is pushing the election of Dennis Miller, Jeffrey Smith and James Warner, in place of incumbent directors Alberto Ibarguen, Patricia Mitchell and James Stengel, at the company's annual meeting next month. The letter includes a point-by-point rundown of Starboard's take on its recent actions and AOL's responses. "If elected, our nominees are committed to working constructively with management and the board to substantially improve the profitability of AOL's Display business, including a full re-assessment of Patch, which, we believe, is losing approximately $150 million per year," Starboard wrote. "There are good and valuable businesses inside AOL. Our nominees plan to work with the board to help optimize the performance of these businesses in order to drive a material improvement in cash flow, profitability and value."
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/starboard-sends-letter-aol-shareholders-151800495.html

San Francisco -- Benchmark Capital, the Menlo Park-based venture capital firm, will open a new office in San Francisco's Tenderloin district, closer to the headquarters of many of its portfolio companies, including Twitter. "Our move to the city speaks to this change in the entrepreneurial landscape," wrote Peter Fenton, a general partner at Benchmark, in AOL technology blog TechCrunch. "Two out of every three new investments we have made since 2009 have been in San Francisco. Our partners currently sit on more than 20 boards in San Francisco including Twitter, Yelp, Instagram, Uber, NewRelic, Zendesk, Dotcloud, Asana, OpenTable, DemandForce, NextDoor, ServiceSource, Lithium, Marin Software, 1Life, Second Life, Coverity, EngineYard, Couchsurfing, Grockit and Pipewise." Twitter next month plans to move its headquarters about a half mile away from the new office, which will be on the top floor of the Warfield Theater.
http://www.benchmark.com
http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/25/benchmark-in-san-francisco/

Santa Clara, Calif. -- Intel, the Santa Clara-based chip-making giant, said on Thursday it will invest more than $40 million over the next five years in a worldwide network of university research communities. The company said the network, to be called the Intel Collaborative Research Institutes (ICRI), is an outgrowth of its U.S.-based Intel Science and Technology Centers. Each institute -- the U.K.-based ICRI for Sustainable Connected Cities, the Germany-based ICRI for Secure Computing and the Israel-based ICRI for Computational Intelligence -- will have a specialized focus. The three will collaborate with their own multi-university communities and other ICRIs, as well as the U.S.-based Intel Science and Technology Centers. "Forming a multidisciplinary community of Intel, faculty and graduate student researchers from around the world will lead to fundamental breakthroughs in some of the most difficult and vexing areas of computing technology," said Justin Rattner, Intel's CTO.
http://newsroom.intel.com/community/intel_newsroom/blog/2012/05/24/intel-invests-more-than-40-million-in-worldwide-network-of-university-research-centers-to-drive-innovation

Fremont, Calif. -- Corsair Components, a Fremont-based supplier of high-performance hardware components for personal computers, said on Thursday it has postponed its planned initial public offering (IPO). The company, which is planning to raise as much as $96.6 million, cited adverse market conditions. "We have decided that we will re-launch when equity market conditions are more favorable," said Andy Paul, the company's co-founder, president and CEO. "While we do intend to expand our capital base through public capital markets, our existing capital structure and balance sheet provides sufficient capital to enable continued investment in our brand strength, products and people."
http://www.corsair.com
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120524005759/en/Corsair-Announces-Postponement-Initial-Public-Offering  

Palo Alto, Calif. -- A week after leaks first surfaced about impending layoffs at HP, the Palo Alto-based technology giant late Wednesday made them official, outlining plans to downsize by about 27,000 employees, or 8% of its staff. The company said it will offer eligible employees early retirement packages, with the number of layoffs depending on how many accept the deals. The restructuring is expected to be completed by the end of fiscal 2014, with HP saving in the range of $3-$3.5 billion a year. "These initiatives build upon our recent organizational realignment, and will further streamline our operations, improve our processes, and remove complexity from our business," said Meg Whitman, HP's president and CEO. "While some of these actions are difficult because they involve the loss of jobs, they are necessary to improve execution and to fund the long term health of the company."
http://h30261.www3.hp.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=71087&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1699268&highlight= 

Menlo Park, Calif. -- A pair of Congressional committees are looking into widespread allegations of impropriety involving Menlo Park-based Facebook's initial public offering (IPO) last week, The Huffington Post reported. Both the Senate Banking Committee and House Financial Services Committee told the publication they're gathering information, with an eye on potential hearings. Controversy has swarmed around the IPO following reports that underwriters shared key earnings information about Facebook with only a limited number of institutional investors. "Effective capital markets require transparency and accountability, not one set of rules for insiders and another for the rest of us," said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), chairman of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Protection. "There's a lot that we don’t know about this IPO, but a lot that we do. We know that the SEC must fully investigate and take appropriate action if it discovers any violations." Facebook began trading on the Nasdaq last Friday.
http://www.brown.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/brown-statement-on-reports-relating-to-facebooks-ipo-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/23/senate-facebook-ipo_n_1539842.html

San Mateo, Calif. -- Kony Solutions, the Florida-based creator of a mobile app development platform, with West Coast operations in San Mateo, said on Wednesday it has landed $15 million in its third round of funding, led by Insight Venture Partners. The company said it will use the proceeds to fuel operations growth, sales and marketing programs and regional expansion. The news follows a year in which the company grew bookings by more than 200% and added more than 30 major customers, including Aetna, CIBC, Scottrade and Sun Life Financial. "This funding will help us continue managing the incredible growth we’re seeing in our business," said CEO Raj Koneru.
http://www.kony.com
http://www.kony.com/kony-solutions-completes-successful-year-accelerated-growth-announces-series-c-funding

San Francisco -- Livevol, a San Francisco-based provider of real-time data to professional and retail equity and index option traders, said on Wednesday it has raised an unspecified amount of private funding. Ron Chez, the co-chairman of Merriman Capital, served as lead institutional investor, and will join Livevol's board of directors. The company plans to use the proceeds to expand its data, analytics and brokerage services. "The investment… provides Livevol with a strong financial base and a strategic partner as we further grow our platform to become the premier technology provider for equity and options trading," said Stefen Choy, the co-founder and COO of Livevol.
http://www.livevolsecurities.com
http://www.merrimanco.com/

Kirkland, Wash.  -- San Francisco commuters on average wasted 48 hours in traffic last year, the third highest figure in the U.S., according to a new report from Inrix. Honolulu (58 hours) tops the list, followed by Los Angeles. All told, 70 of the nation's 100 most populated cities showed decreases in traffic congestion last year -- a trend Inrix attributes to a lack of employment combined with high fuel prices. The report also cited an 11-mile stretch of the CA-4 EB (California Delta Highway) from Bailey Rd. to Somersville Rd. as the country's 10th worst traffic corridor. The stretch takes 16 minutes on average to travel, with 11 minutes of delay.
http://www.inrix.com/pressrelease.asp?ID=156

Washington, DC -- Looking to accelerate the government's shift to mobile technology, President Obama on Wednesday issued a directive requiring each federal agency to make two key government services available on mobile phones within the next 12 months. The administration said it also will ramp up efforts to make large amounts of government data more accessible to the public, with the hope of spurring entrepreneurs to develop a range of new services and mobile apps. "Americans deserve a government that works for them anytime, anywhere, and on any device," said Obama. The White House said the goal of the program is to make dozens of additional government services accessible through mobile phones by next spring. "We're living in an increasingly mobile world and it is critical that the federal government keep up with the way the American people do business," said Steven VanRoekel, the federal chief information officer. "Already, families can use government apps to check the wait time at the airport, get access to critical veteran services and check the status of their tax return. Today's directive will accelerate our drive to make key services easily accessible to more Americans than ever."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/05/23/obama-administration-launches-sweeping-shift-mobile

Santa Clara, Calif. -- AccelOps, a Santa Clara-based developer of integrated security, network and data center monitoring and management software, said on Tuesday it has raised $15 million in a new round of funding, led by USVP. Several previous backers also participated in the round, which the company will use to drive expansion. The news comes as the company, which introduced its first product two years ago, revealed it has now surpassed the 150-customer milestone. "With more organizations deploying private and hybrid cloud solutions, and increasingly sophisticated security threats looming, there is a broad and growing need to correlate and analyze events across the entire IT infrastructure in real-time," said Chris Rust, partner at US Venture Partners.
http://www.accelops.com
http://www.usvp.com/html_vers/

Sunnyvale, Calif. -- German business software giant SAP said on Tuesday it will acquire Sunnyvale-based Ariba, developer of a cloud-based business commerce network, in a deal worth $4.3 billion. SAP will pay $45 a share under the deal, which is expected to close during the third quarter. SAP said the acquisition will establish it as a leading business network, adding business-to-business collaboration to its existing offerings, and also significantly boost the company's cloud applications portfolio. Ariba, which has approximately 2,600 employees, is the second-largest cloud vendor by revenue. Ariba's current management team will continue to lead the company, which will operate as an independent business under the name "Ariba, an SAP company." "By combining Ariba's open global trading network and SAP's solutions and analytics, we are ushering in a new era of business-to-business collaboration and driving new levels of productivity," said Bob Calderoni, the CEO of Ariba
http://www.ariba.com/
http://www.sap.com
http://www.news-sap.com/sap-to-expand-cloud-presence-with-acquisition-of-ariba/

San Jose, Calif. -- Integrated Device Technology (IDT), a San Jose-based developer of mixed-signal semiconductor, said on Tuesday it has launched an exchange offer to acquire shares of Sunnyvale-based PLX Technology, a maker of semiconductor-based connectivity products. The companies originally announced the agreement, at the time worth approximately $330 million, on April 30. Under the deal, set to expire on June 30, PLX stockholders will receive $3.50 in cash and .525 shares of IDT for each of their shares.
http://www.idt.com
http://www.idt.com/about/press-room/idt-commences-exchange-offer-acquire-plx-technology-inc

San Ramon, Calif. -- More than half of Bay Area chief financial officers believe revenue growth at their companies will significantly outpace headcount this year, according to a new survey by San Ramon-based Armanino McKenna. Of the more than 200 CFOs interviewed, a majority say they plan to optimize processes, deploy new technology and increase the use of partnering to grow at a faster pace with small to no increases in headcount. Moreover, 71% also said they plan to expand into new geographic markets, including international, over the next three years.
http://www.amllp.com
http://www.amllp.com/pdfs/2012-CFO-Bechmark-Survey-Report.pdf (PDF)